


Bring This Room

by Romany



Category: Smallville
Genre: Anaphora, Drabbles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-07
Updated: 2007-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1977975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romany/pseuds/Romany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark and Lex are in a room. The rest doesn't matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring This Room

I.

“You wanted to see me, Lex?”

Lex turns from the liquor stand to find Clark hovering in the office doorway, uncertain and wary. Their détente these past weeks a fragile thing, eggshells strewn upon the ground. No longer friends, no longer enemies. But these are merely categories, shifting shelf space in a room that they always find themselves in, each other. Somehow, they are always here, light filtering through the window, fractured. And when they go, they bring this room with them, return.

Clark steps inside.

Clark is a man who cannot leave, and Lex a man who cannot drown.

 

II.

A man cannot go down twice to the same river. There is only one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

“Were we ever really friends, Lex?”

Clark has always had a sinful mouth. Lies and temptation, twists and turns within a deceitful simplicity. Snakes and ladders, a children’s game, the outcome arbitrary. Lex prefers to glance down at the parquet floor, delineation, soothing and clear. Better than in those eyes, shifts of color. Hazel, some would call them, a catch-all for green, blue, gray. Nothing is ever sure.

Clark sits on a couch.

“I don’t know, Clark. You tell me.”

 

III.

History is rewritten by the victor. There are no victors here, only two men in a room, uncertain what to say to one another. The story constantly unfolding and refolding, words so limiting. They have yet to define who they really are.

They define each other. Neither of them can voice this.

Lex sits down beside him, glass of scotch in hand. He waits.

“Do you think…?”

No, Lex doesn’t think. Yes, he thinks entirely too much. Both of these are true.

“We’ll never know.”

Knowing is certainty. There is no certainty when it comes to Clark, too much possibility.

 

IV.

Clark should leave. He has outstayed his welcome. Clark should never leave again. Clark always leaves.

Outside, autumn shifts, the tilting of the earth. Longitude, latitude. Lex knows exactly where he is. He is in a room. Clark sits next to him, quiet, undemanding. That in itself a demand. 

Clark demands entirely too much. Clark doesn’t demand enough.

Lex rises, fixes another drink.

“Did you want something, Clark?”

Clark shakes his head. Clark never asks for the right things. Denial, negation. Clark only wants the impossible.

The impossible in a soda glass. Lex remembers. He gets ice, lets it fall.

 

V.

Time is both linear and circular. There is no return and yet they are in this room again. They are always in this room. They are never in this room when it matters.

Clark is the same age now that Lex was then. Clark is a man. This should be important, noted. They don’t speak of it. They don’t speak of many things.

They are having a conversation. They have had this conversation before, trivial and insignificant. They are having a conversation.

Clark will leave. Clark will return. Lex will be here.

Clark is here now.

The rest doesn’t matter.


End file.
